The Quiet Friendly Menace
by TyrantChimera
Summary: Even if they don't talk or interact much, Sephiroth considers Cloud Strife a friend. Now if only he wasn't surrounded by so much random chaos... Random giftfic for WandererRiha, set in their "Haunted House" 'verse.


In which I drabble about someone else's fanfic. Because fanfics of established series weren't enough apparently, and I've gotta do fanfics of fanfics. I'm pretty sure I've messed up a few details but _dangit I don't care_ It's a Thing.

* * *

**I. Baby dragons hoard things.**

_In which I allude to a certain movie_

"It'll be fine!" Zack reassures him, waving away Sephiroth's concerns with perhaps a little too much ease.

Sephiroth would normally trust his close friend with almost anything, but today he was a little more cautious in doing so. It wasn't his fault, but Zack was clearly biased in this decision, to say little of the fact that it had been his suggestion in the first place.

"He's young. Untested. Can we trust him?"

It had been a rare crisis indeed. Valentine, Verdot, every other seasoned adult he could think of had important matters to attend to. Even himself and Elfe had to be called away for a meeting.

The schools were closed for a holiday. There were no others to babysit his three younger siblings, and no matter how hard Sephiroth tried, he could not find a way for himself or Elfe to stay without seriously sabotaging the reason the meeting had been called in the first place. Blast it, why did it have to be all the way in Kalm? It would be all day before he could return!

Zack takes his apprehension without a hint of offense that Sephiroth's words might have otherwise caused in their oblivious harshness, "It's cool! Cloud is totally a good guy. You know he's got your back."

"He's young. He was never formally made an officer. He's barely older than Loz himself, and you think he'd be able to babysit? I trust him, but not with this..." Okay, maybe that was a stretch. There were a few years between them, Cloud and Loz. But _still_.

Zack just snorts and grins. "And here you are. You're babying him just as much as your brothers! Sephiroth. Dude. It's okay. You've gotta let the green officers lead at some point. He's not gonna get more responsible and be a good leader if you _don't let him lead_. Besides, I've babysat when I was even younger than him! And it's not a battlefield. You can leave him some emergency contacts and instructions. It'll be _fine_."

Sephiroth hums and haws, and tries to argue, and has absolutely no defenses against the suggestions the spiky, black haired man is putting forth. After all, Cloud is young, so theoretically will have more energy to play with his siblings if they so demand it. And he is much more responsible than others his age. Sephiroth eventually relents. On the morning that he leaves, poor Cloud nearly quails under the stern commands Sephiroth rattles at him as he towers over the blonde.

But he nearly quails. He doesn't actually quail. He sets his shoulders and nods, and stares at Sephiroth with all the severity of a man volunteering to be sent on a suicide mission. No fear, just resolution. Sephiroth starts to feel a little better about things after that.

Still. It doesn't stop him worrying all day, and it's everything he can do to not text the blonde every ten minutes. But he doesn't. He tells himself that the blonde would let him know if there were any issues, and that if he keeps checking in he'll make Cloud think he has no trust in him. And Cloud would be too stoic to tell him if that lack of trust would break his heart. He'd grin and bear it, and follow along as usual, and Sephiroth really wondered why, of all things he seemed to have in common with the blonde, it had to be the inability to admit when things truly bothered him. He'd grown up with a normal childhood, right? So where'd he learn such a behavior? That trait was probably one of the things that endeared Sephiroth to Cloud in the first place, admittedly. It made Sephiroth want to try and protect what could easily be seen as a younger version of himself if you squinted, turned your head to the side, and added copious amounts of styling gel and hair dye and/or bleach to the equation. Seriously, Cloud's hair was a downright insult to gravity at the best of times.

When Sephiroth steps back into his home with Elfe, he can't hold back his sigh of relief. Nothing on fire, no blood trails anywhere. Just a slightly tired looking trooper looking up at him from the couch where he and Sephiroth's siblings are sat, reading an old storybook.

"Good to see you back, sir," Cloud nods. He has the slightest, shyest of smiles on his face. Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo also look up, waving and greeting their elder brother happily with an assortment of childish admonishments for taking so long. Cloud pats them on their heads and stands up, placing the book on a side table. "Well. Once you're settled, I can go. I won't intrude any longer. Sleep well, sir," he says to the general as he gets to his feet. Sephiroth nods back at him, silently grateful that Cloud is observant enough to see that his superior might need some space after such a long trip. Or perhaps, he's just straight to the point like that. No nonsense, no asking about how things went. His job was done, and he was leaving Sephiroth his precious space now that he was no longer needed.

"There's little to settle. Thank you. Dismissed," Sephiroth states, though not unkindly. Cloud smiles again, grabbing his bag before heading to the door. Despite their mutual social awkwardness, it seems they understood each other all too well in this regards. The job was done, they both were thankful, and that was that. No amount of accidental abruptness could be offensive when both men were more than happy with their own company and space.

"You're leaving?" Yazoo asks softly, watching Cloud leave. Cloud turns back and gives an affirmative hum and nod. The three children sit bolt upright, look at each other, and surge to their feet.

"No!"

Sephiroth isn't sure which one of them says it, but all he sees is three blurs of silver, a thud, and as he blinks himself back to reality, a pile of silverettes pinning the blonde underneath them on the floor.

"Oniiisaaaaaaaaan!" Loz complains loudly, "don't make him leave! Make it so he comes back!"

Sephiroth and Elfe both blink, in a bit of a stupor at this behavior. "Comes back?"

"Yeah! We like him!"

"Can we keep him?"

"We're adopting him. He's ours now," Kadaj states imperiously, firmly plopping his chin down on the back of Cloud's head and strengthening his grip around the blonde's shoulders and neck. "Weiss and Nero and Rosso are siblings and they're not related, right? And we like Cloud. So he's gonna be our new brother now. Right Cloud?" Kadaj gives Cloud a squeeze from where he's laid across Cloud's back, and Sephiroth is too busy making tactical observations about how the three kids have pinned him to really put a word in edgewise.

"...Adopting...?" Cloud manages to grunt softly, a little breathless from the weight of three mini-SOLDIERs holding him down.

"Yup." Kadaj answers with all the authority of a child who has Made A Decision, and because he's Made A Decision that's how the world will be. Yazoo gives a happy little creel (quietly of course. This is Yazoo, after all) and shoves his face into Cloud's captured arm, like a happy baby dragon on it's mother's hoard.

Baby dragons indeed. Baby dragons who've apparently gotten mixed up between gold-ish hair and actual gold, and decided that their blonde-gold-haired babysitter was _theirs_ anyways. Sephiroth blames the Bahamut summons embedded in their chests for this one. Elfe crosses her arms and hides her smile in her hand, looking down at Cloud. "Cloud's home is elsewhere. You have to let him go at some point."

"No we don't," Loz informs her plainly. The other two nod in confirmation at this sound logic. Sephiroth is not sure how they can argue with that one. He's not quite sure how his three brothers have bonded so quickly with someone they'd really never met before, either, but here they are.

"Um," Cloud starts, and the boys are suddenly rapt at attention, "I could always... visit? And babysit again if Sephiroth wants. It's okay, I don't mind..." Cloud mumbles, looking away meekly. As if he doesn't want to bother Sephiroth if Sephiroth doesn't want him around. He had been Sephiroth's last choice, after all...

Kadaj gets up, stomps over to stand in front of his biggest brother, puts his hands on his hips, and huffs up at Sephiroth even as he looks back at Cloud. "So then we make big brother to promise to let you back. Sephiroth, let Cloud come back. Please?" He adds at the end, as if just realizing that he was making demands of both a general and his big brother. He blinks a little as his mind catches up to him.

Sephiroth just smiles with humor as he looks over at the teen still sprawled on the floor. "Why, Cloud, you never told me you were good with children." Cloud just groans in response to this, as baffled as

Sephiroth is about the whole affair. Sephiroth hums considerately, "Zack never mentioned this. I suppose he didn't know. No doubt he should be informed, what with Aeris expecting." Cloud mumbles conspiratorially again as Elfe chuckles. But he doesn't complain too hard, despite his sudden conscription into future babysitting services. Sephiroth turns solemnly towards Kadaj, "I promise Cloud can come over to babysit more. Will that do?"

Apparently it will. Kadaj's face splits in a grin and he throws himself back onto the pile with an "Oof!" from Cloud. "You hear that! You're our brother now, brother! You get to come over!"

Elfe laughs. Sephiroth shakes his head at the twist put into his words. And Cloud, poor Cloud, just lets his face fall to the ground with a long suffering sigh of someone who knew all too well the chaos that his life was going to descend into at the behest of a trio of silver-haired dragonettes.

Well. Cloud was from Nibelheim. It made sense for him to babysit more. After all, he probably knew more than most about how to deal with baby dragons.

**II. Blindsiding death/expectations**

_In which Cloud is reliably stupid and/or stubborn_

They were out for a walk, discussing what to do with the nearby crumbling street, when it happened. They heard shouts and roars from beyond an alley not far away. Zack looked back, Elfe put her arms out defensively in front of the civil workers they'd been planning with, and Sephiroth's heart jumped to his throat and the ground at the same time.

"Cloud!"

Sephiroth began running. He recognized the voices he'd heard. Cloud, the unenhanced former trooper, had shouted, and rogue monsters had bellowed in response. There were still some that popped up every once in a while in Midgar, most of them relatively harmless. But some of them, some of them were experiments that had been forgotten in Shinra tower or the bowels of Deepground. Those ones, when they emerged, were not to be trifled with by anyone less than a first class or a tsviet.

Cloud was neither of these.

An those bellows had not been from one of the relatively harmless monsters.

Sephiroth knew they were too far away, even as they closed the distance in record time. They jumped across buildings with panic and adrenaline foremost in their minds. Zack was pale as a sheet, his lips shut firmly and his teeth gritted tight in horror at his friend's peril. Sephiroth wasn't sure how or when he himself had become so fond of Cloud. Maybe it was when he'd refused to back down in the fight in the Nibelheim basement, or any other fight where his friends were in danger. Maybe it was when he'd braved a hoard of mako zombies and warring comrades to strike at the monster who'd been orchestrating it all. Or maybe, just maybe, it was when he'd followed quietly behind Sephiroth and the rest of the party, through warzone after warzone, neither complaining nor faltering as he silently stayed at their backs in a way that was all too easy to overlook, yet meant all the difference.

Sephiroth had gotten used to Cloud's presence, quiet but sure. He thought of him as a friend, even if they never really interacted all that much, because so-called greater men had left Sephiroth behind for far lesser things than the end of the world. And yet there Cloud had been, a wisp of blonde in the corner of his eye every once in a blue moon. Still there, still following. Still holding formation at his back and doing everything he could to push everyone forward through the mire, even if no one noticed. Like a little mascot almost, a tiny little guy with no hope in Hell, who somehow trudged on gamely despite the apocalypse seeming to pop up to throw them all an early welcoming party every chance it got.

And now that presence was going to be torn apart. He would be gone just as quickly and quietly as he'd snuck into Sephiroth's life. Visions of blood and entrails flashed before Sephiroth's eye as he turned the corner to where he'd heard Cloud. Memories of many battles and bleeding victims replayed in his head as he desperately prayed that his blonde friend wouldn't end up the suffering the same dire fate. It was a little different, a little easier when it was people you didn't know, random civilians or soldiers whose faces he'd never have known anyways. But this was Cloud. He didn't want to know how he or Zack (poor Zack, dear gods Zack!) were going to handle seeing Cloud's brilliant blonde hair scattered amongst blood and viscera, or his arm torn off, or his leg down the throat of a monster. He didn't want to know. Dear, merciless gods, he didn't want to know!

And thankfully, miraculously, he didn't have to.

He turned the corner, and saw Cloud. Cloud, standing, alive, bellowing in blind rage and swinging a broken sword at the brutish thing screaming back at him. Cloud's shattered weapon tore right through the thing's brow and eye even as Sephiroth bulled past him, sinking Masamune into its chest as the thing reared back in shock and pain. It fell with a far too heavy crash, and Zack was finished beheading the last of the things even before Sephiroth knew or registered that there was more than one. He vaguely felt the edges of his signature jacket tugging at him as it snagged around Cloud's small, trembling form. Sephiroth snapped his eyes around the battlefield, adrenaline fueling his search. No further threats presented themselves, and it took everything Sephiroth had to bring himself out of battle mode. To realize that Cloud was shaking like a leaf in a storm, rasping in air and coughing and breathing sporadically through the deep gouges carved in his chest and flanks.

Yet he was alive. Cloud was still alive.

Relief unclenched his gut and made Sephiroth dizzy even as he realized just how closely he stood to the small blond, their sides practically shoved together. Cloud dropped the broken sword from nerveless, battle shocked hands, and it clanged to the concrete street just behind Sephiroth's boot as the taller man unconsciously put his hand on Cloud's shoulder. Sephiroth vaguely realized that their proximity was due to the fact that he'd seemingly pushed Cloud behind him, or maybe placed himself between Cloud and the monsters and hadn't shoved him back far enough, or...

Cloud looked up at him, eyes unfocused, and it took everything not to tremble and remember Genesis, lying in a pool of Aeris's divine rain, dead and melting.

"Shit, Cloud!" Zack wailed, remnant fear crushing his chest so hard it crept into his voice, "just. Shit!"

Sephiroth flexed unconsciously, watching, as if just a spectator, as his own wings shoved Cloud into his side further, sheltering him in plumage. A protective gesture he could be embarrassed about later. Adrenaline was both a wonderful and horrible thing. And it was taking time to wear off. Sephiroth looked around the battlefield one more time, just to make sure that his friend was well and truly safe. (Enough of his friends were dead already, enough. More than enough. Not Cloud too. Not today, death! You were not taking another friend today!) As he looked, as he took stock of their surroundings, he realized just how horrible Cloud's chances had really been. Four gigantic corpses were immediately noticeable, splayed across the small back street they were on. One's skull was crushed under a dumpster, the beast buried under the heavy, dented metal as if it has lost control and rammed too hard into the thing. Another, covered in lacerations, revealed the location of the rest of Cloud's sword. The chunk of sharp metal was embedded in its neck, blood still oozing from the jagged wound and the twisted, snarled jaws, the corpse's tongue lolling obscenely from its death-opened maw. Then there were the two nearest their small group, headless and heartless at a glance.

Four monsters. Four.

He and Zack had only killed two.

"What happened," commanded Sephiroth.

"I don't... I don't know..." Cloud gasped. He shuddered, his mind clearly reeling from the near death experience, "They came out. Got the other two men with me before I could even warn them. I grabbed a sword... I don't. I don't know what happened. I don't remember."

A typical symptom of shock, Sephiroth noted clinically. He patted Cloud's shoulder and opened his wing a bit, assured that the danger had well and truly passed. Zack slung the Buster Sword over his back, heedless of the gore still caking it and now his shoulders, and stumbled towards Cloud. "Shit, Cloud," He said, his voice rattled, "fucking shit!"

He clutched Cloud to him and held him tight, adrenaline still high and making him quiver even as he did his best to calm Cloud down (or perhaps, calm the both of them down. He hadn't seen Zack so rattled since... since...! No. Not going there). It didn't matter how war-hardened and experienced a soldier of any kind was. The battlefield heeded no rules but those of life and death. Failure or survival. And Cloud had somehow survived, covered in blood and deep slashes from the claws of his foes.

Sephiroth had never been one for miracles, not even after seeing the forces of nature wrought in combat with a calamity from the skies. Yet for all intents and purposes, one had just played out for Cloud. Their blonde was alive. And Sephiroth was not going to look this gift chocobo in the beak. He sent Zack and Cloud to medical. The blonde would prove meek and cowed for a couple of days as he recovered, even as Sepiroth press-ganged other security forces into finding any sort of footage of the area, to see where the monsters had come from. If there were more, they needed to be dealt with immediately.

Two days later, him and Zack were watching the footage. Darkness and tension held Zack's brows, his posture promising unholy retribution when and if they found the source of the beasts. Sephiroth knew he held such a glare too. He would not let others die unnecessarily on his watch.

His ire faded with a meek little flutter of puzzlement as he watched the incident play out in fizzled, grainy film. As Cloud had said, the beasts seemed to burst out of nowhere, and two other troopers on screen did not react quickly enough to their presence to avoid being ground to a pulp by the stampeding monsters. Cloud did, however. The boy rarely wore a helmet, despite the safety it should have offered, and that perhaps had saved his life. He'd noticed the beasts, dodged their initial assault and grabbed his sword, then stood stock still in terror as he watched the monsters raise their heads and stare down their remaining prey.

After that, he roared.

Cloud charged. It all became a blur of beast and metal as their blonde danced for his life around their gnashing teeth, stabbing horns, and slashing jaws. His fierce counterattack perhaps stunned the things, for one backed off, no doubt startled by the unexpected resistance. Another seemed to hesitate, whether from uncertainty or the inability to get around the large bodies of its comrades, no one knew. Cloud attacked one, another charged with horns down to gore, and Cloud _batted it aside _with the heavy base of his sword, redirecting it to its demise via dumpster. Heedless of wounds incurred, Cloud pressed on, screaming unholy death as he viciously dueled another of the beasts. His quick form darted around fatal blows. He sunk his sword into its neck, just as another of the monsters swatted him away from its doomed packmate. Blood and Cloud went flying. Even the poor footage couldn't hide the horrible wounds.

Wounds Cloud ignored. Another beast charged. He got up, roared, and prepared to meet his foes again.

Sephiroth watched himself dash on screen and slay the creature even as Zack seemed to appear nearby, Buster Sword falling like a executioner's axe.

"Hell," Zack summarized. "Holy hell."

Sephiroth paused the footage, staring at the screen. Something about this brought memories forth, from his younger days. He thought of the bloody battle, of Cloud's symptoms. Something hovered at the edge of his mind. "Zack. Where was Cloud from?"

"Nibelheim." came the flat answer.

Nibelheim. The home of Odin and Fenrir, if Sephiroth remembered correctly. Something pinged his brain, an old lesson he'd remembered fondly from a military history and tactics discussion that had derailed long ago in a Shinra classroom.

"Nibel berserkers. He's a berserker," Sephiroth realized.

Zack looked at him, face blank. They both knew the stories about berserkers. The old Wutaiian horror stories told from generation to generation, and then printed into war tomes, about a group of mountain warriors with such battle lust they'd bite their shields and howl like beasts. There'd been some debate in the class about whether or not such things existed or not, or if they were overblown tales. There'd also been some mild laughter and jokes, until their instructor had promptly reminded them that, tall tale or not, it was as good a reminder as any to never underestimate an opponent. It was the sort of thing that caused literal nightmares for military commanders. One moment, you thought you had your odds figured out, the match a foregone conclusion. The next, the odds were thrown back in your face by a fighter that cared not for pain or blood, for fire or iron, or whatever else you could thrown at them. Enemies who fought beyond human ability and ripped others to shreds with their bare hands. It was even said that some wielded large swords, blades big enough to cleave a man and mount at the same time. Perhaps that sort of tale had even inspired SOLDIER itself. The stories had seemed pretty overblown at the time, Sephiroth thought.

Now, staring at a five-foot-something blonde teenager decimate a pack of beasts ten times his size on a tiny screen, monsters that by all rights should have turned him into a splat on the pavement within the space of a breath... Sephiroth wondered if those old tales had perhaps been _downplayed_.

"A berserker? Aw man. Spiky's so _cool_," Zack grinned. And then his grinned dropped. "Huh. Can you imagine him if he actually was makou enhanced?" He looked at Sephiroth. Sephiroth looked back, face also blank. Both of them stared. And then shuddered.

Sephiroth feared very little on the battlefield. But that thought? He wasn't going to deny the little chill down his spine that followed it. The thought of facing Cloud, or anyone else like him... a small, practically defenseless child when compared to his own ability... only to have said teen suddenly ignore pain and province to strike back? And then to take said berserker teen and up the ante to eleven with makou injections?

The battlefield heeded no rules but those of life and death. Ambushes happened. And even Sephiroth knew that he could fall prey to such things. He could only imagine an opponent, who was supposed to be a foregone conclusion, striking back with all the fury and absolution of the hand of death itself.

Yes, he thought, he was fully justified in feeling the little chill down his spine. And thanking Minerva Cloud was on the same side as them. Woe to those who weren't!

...Although, impressed as he was at Cloud's survival, the blonde was _absolutely_ getting chewed out for getting into such a mess in the first place.

"Cool or not, he should have retreated for help," Sephiroth stated. Zack's firm frown and set brows showed he agreed. Cloud was getting a talking to from two very concerned, loving, scared, overbearing, and _pissed the hell off_ friends. And if Sephiroth called up Tifa and told her what happened, so that she'd admonish him too? Well, Sephiroth thought mildly, she didn't hear about it from him.


End file.
